Paper Boats
by pandorad24
Summary: "Finnick Odair: winner of the Sixty-fifth Annual Hunger Games. Sentenced to live the rest of his life under the blinding spotlight of the Capitol, in the palm of President Snow's hand."


**Just so you know, this used to be posted on my friend flYegurl's profile, but it's always been mine. I've finally been released from FF banishment, so now I can take this one off her hands. Hope you enjoy!**

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Finnick Odair wasn't like them. The kids in his district that got off on violence and bloodlust, adrenaline junkies that lived for every training session, every reaping. If the sessions weren't mandatory to attend, he would blow them off entirely, if only to feel the warm sand between his toes and the salty seawater lapping at his skin. Home. The sea was his home.

His future was simple in those days. Inherit his father's humble business, fishing for the Capitol, living out his years in the ocean that he loved. He would marry, have children, and raise them on the same sandy shores where he grew up. Simple. Perfect. There was nothing to get between him and the rest of his peaceful life.

Nothing, of course, except for reaping day.

They had to drag him onto the train. In the distance, he could just faintly see the shoreline, dotted with meager homes, his own among them. Crystal-clear waves crashed over the sand, gulls cried overhead, and sweet air drifted out from the flowering dunes. Then they slid the iron door shut, and it was over. His life was over. He was certain, beyond a doubt, that he would never return.

Mags, the kind old victor that served as mentor for him and the bloodthirsty girl that accompanied them, took one look at Finnick and muttered under her breath, "Let's pray you don't win, dear." At the time, he took it in offense, and resolved not to speak with the woman the rest of the ride. Now, it was clear she'd had some insight he couldn't see until it was too late. It didn't take long for him to realize that in almost every case, losing the Hunger Games was not the worse of two possibilities.

It took a couple years for him to put together the puzzle pieces that explained the Capitol's adoration for him. From the moment he arrived, the strange citizens made it clear that he was the star of the show, fawning over him with lavish gifts and wild applause. He supposed he should have made some connection when his prep team's hands always seemed to linger a bit too long, and his stylist had the idea to present him at the opening ceremonies in nothing but golden body glitter at age fourteen, while his female counterpart wore a full-length dress. Hungry, freakishly colored eyes followed him wherever he went.

A free spirit was not his only excuse for wishing to abandon his training back in the district. The mere thought of killing an innocent human being was repulsive to him. Unthinkable. When he mentioned this to Mags, she just shook her head and said, "All that goes away the minute you step off the pedestal. Being noble won't come as naturally as you think. That's the whole game right there - molding you into the killer they all expect."

She was right. As much as he resolved to prove them wrong, the instinct for self preservation completely took over in those heart-pounding days of terror. His only mercy was an effort to make the deaths he performed as quick and painless as possible. His method of trapping his victims was admittedly cowardly, but affective. Before he knew what he had done, the Capitol anthem was sounding over the loud speakers, announcing his victory. Finnick Odair: winner of the Sixty-fifth Annual Hunger Games. Sentenced to live the rest of his life under the blinding spotlight of the Capitol, in the palm of President Snow's hand.

For a couple years, all seemed to be going rather well, considering. Though it was customary for victors to take turns mentoring for the Games, the Capitol relented to Mags' insistence that she take Finnick's place, and he was able to spend all his time on the water, the only place where he felt at home. Those days were times of recuperation for him - in time, he thought, he would be able to heal from the trauma of the Games and piece together the dream that shattered when his name was drawn. However, the year he turned sixteen, he was ushered off with the two latest tributes, despite Mags' best efforts to keep him home. He thought she must expect he'll make a really terrible mentor; this impression was mostly true, since he never really got the chance to teach the other kids anything. The Capitol had their own plans for him, and Finnick was the last to know.

It seemed only fair for him to be informed of the one-sided agreement by the man who arranged it, but he was merely thrown into a room by an armed Peacekeeper with the cold words, "Be a good boy, or you'll never see your friends and family again." That was the start of a nightmare worse than even the Hunger Games could inflict on him. Everyone in the Capitol wanted a piece of the legendary Finnick Odair, and apparently President Snow couldn't refuse their requests - backed up with enormous amounts of money, of course. And, as Finnick found out later that night, Caesar Flickerman himself and a couple of his wealthy friends had bought themselves into the first spot in line.

He never saw the Games that year, or any that followed, and was only offhandedly informed several nights later over a tearstained pillow that both of his tributes had become victims of the bloodbath at the Cornucopia. He'd failed them, and one step out of line on his part would add all his loved ones to the list of casualties. And so, from that first night onward, he grit his teeth against the protests and bore it in silence. After several years of experience, his performance in that glorified prison of a room had half of the Capitol convinced they were his one true love.

Thinking back, he wondered how anyone could look at him after that first night and call him beautiful. All he could see were the marks left by his terrorists, traces of every touch and kiss, like fingerprints seared into his skin. He was only a boy then - every trace of innocence the Games had left in him had been torn away without a thought, by those flashy, careless people disfigured by layer upon layer of plastic surgery and thick makeup. Some were women, some men, some a little of both, some he questioned even belonged on the same planet. Of course, they weren't all as cruel as Flickerman turned out to be - for the most part, they were just superficial, lost in their own glittering delusions of glamour and artificial love. Two things he knew for certain, though: not one of them ever saw him for who he was. And not one of them, in all their botox-supplemented gaudiness, could compare to the simple beauty and grace of Annie Cresta.

He was nineteen when her name was drawn. As a victim of seven full years of tesserae - not for a desire to join the Games, but a family drowning in poverty - it was clear she'd been expecting it. Resigned to her fate, she joined the tearful twelve-year-old on the stage with a quiet dignity. Finnick couldn't remember the last time someone held his gaze, but she stared directly at him. Beneath the calm reserve, he saw the ocean raging in her eyes.

This year, he would make time for his tributes, no matter the cost. For whatever reason, he knew he had to keep that girl alive.

Every spare moment he thought he could afford away from his "clients" (as Snow called them), he spent with his tributes, giving them advice, training them in technique for use before and during the Games. Surely, he thought, Snow would grant him this much. But the demands of the Capitol called for access to Finnick around the clock - some had been saving up all year for the pleasure of his company, and the list of appointments stretched on and on.

Of course, Snow didn't retaliate immediately; that wasn't his style. The Games came and went, with Annie as victor. She wasn't whole, but she was alive. For the first time, Finnick rode the train home with one of his tributes - it didn't quite make up for abandoning all the others, but one life he'd helped preserve was better than nothing. He was beginning to think that his absence wouldn't be met with punishment at all.

When he walked through the door of his home in the Victor's Village, he found his parents sprawled over the bloodstained carpet. Dead.

Besides Mags, his mother and father were the only people who still looked at him the same way after that first year of mentoring. Everyone could see what he'd become - a district slave, the Capitol's pretty little imported toy, bought and sold, rented over and over again. Overused and rung out. Sometimes he found pity in their eyes, which was unbearable enough, but most often they held disgust. He knew exactly what they were all thinking: he impaled kids on a trident, and yet he's helpless against the citizens of the Capitol. Pathetic - that's what he was to them. Just another wasted victor.

For a while, he couldn't even look at her, knowing the price his family had paid for her life. He can't help but ask himself if it was worth it to give up two of the few people that still loved him to save a girl he'd never spoken a word to before her reaping. But Annie Cresta wasn't like them. The people that avoid his gaze, and stare at him when they think he's not looking. Somehow, Annie understands him, even when her understanding of reality has become so twisted.

And so, when she knocks on his door late one night, he lets her in. She doesn't say a word, and neither does he; somehow he knows they're both searching for the same comfort. He opens his arms to her, and she comes crashing into them. They fit together like pieces of a puzzle. Finnick holds her until morning, rocking her to sleep on the couch as he mutters comforts into her ear. When she wakes at dawn, she smiles up at him, her eyes clearer than he'd seem them in a long time, and she tells him there had been no nightmares that night.

They're the outcasts of District 4. She was disturbed, he was damaged goods. But not once did Finnick see her as mad - Annie was simply scared and confused, shellshocked into her own little world. And through Annie's eyes, for the first time in years, Finnick could see himself as a person - not merely an object, the Capitol's puppet, their toy. He gave her clarity, and she gave him something to live for. She was helping him rebuild his dream, brick by brick, as he helped to tear down the illusions that haunted her. They were broken, but each had exactly what the other needed to make themselves whole again.

Finnick came to the slow realization that he loved Annie Cresta. And that was when he knew she wasn't safe, and never would be again, unless someone put an end to Snow's tyranny. Because Snow had a way of finding everything precious in life and tearing it slowly and painfully apart.

He needed a plan, and the army to back it up. He found both in his first of many clients the following year, one of Seneca Crane's lackeys, a large man named Plutarch Heavensbee. He turned out to not be a client at all; apparently he'd paid for the time to make a deal with Finnick in private.

A resistance was forming. District 13 had escaped extinction, finding refuge underground. They were planning a rebellion, and they needed inside information from the heart of the Capitol itself. Secrets.

After they were finished with him, the citizens of the Capitol were an open book. A batt of his eyes and a seductive tone was all it took to get them to spill the info the resistance needed. No one would acknowledge it later, but much of the war was fought and won in that same room where his innocence had been stolen at just sixteen. None of them knew that his sacrifice of pseudo passion was made for a love back home that he knew was something real - something pure.

If he refused, Snow killed someone he loved. So he did it. He also did it to bring Snow's downfall. He did it for his parents, who lost their lives by the Capitol they served. He did it for the tributes he had no choice but to forsake. He did it for the injustice of the Games and what came after. He did it for himself. He did it for the world. And, most of all, he did it for Annie.

He would do anything for Annie.

She came into the picture not long after, and all Hell broke loose - the Girl On Fire. He had to admit, he admired her spunk. She was the final thing on their to do list. They needed an advocate, someone to rally the troops. Of course, caging the Mockingjay wasn't going to be easy - they were counting on Finnick to keep Katniss' fire contained, not to mention burning steady for the rebel side. Of course, resentment for the Capitol was one area she wasn't lacking in; the hard part would be convincing her to trust him.

The Quarter Quell found him in the Capitol once more, and for the first time in eight years, he wasn't expected to attend to his parade of self-imposed lovers during his stay. Of course, there were the interviews to contend with, and facing the deceptively warm and friendly Caesar Flickerman for the first time since he was sixteen wasn't going to be easy. The man still visited him in his nightmares some nights, muttering vile praises for Finnick's beauty as he elicited streams of tears down the teen's cheeks, his friends cackling in the background as they awaited their turn...

Finnick had his retaliation already planned out. Just as a fun fact, he would tell the audience the number of times he was taken advantage of in that first year as mentor, and ask Caesar if he and his buddies enjoyed the privilege of having him first. He didn't know how the pedophile would put an inspiring spin on that. Of course, it was an obvious mistake to mention this to his escort - she immediately shoved a slip of paper into his hand, some hastily printed love poem, and told him to present it as a serenade for his one true love in the Capitol.

Finnick wanted to tell her that he had a true love, and she was hundreds of miles away from the city where the stars didn't shine. But to point this out on national television was to draw attention to Annie, which could only put her in jeopardy. So, as he recited the lines of the poem, he tried to imagine her dark hair, her shining smile, and the salty shores of home. He couldn't even bring himself to look Caesar in the eye.

The Games were no less horrific than he remembered them. Perhaps the worst part was discovering how easily he slid back into that carnal mentality - he killed without even blinking. But now, it wasn't just his own life he was fighting for. He had the Girl On Fire and her fiancé to defend, he had a struggling Mags, and of course he had Annie back home. Thinking of returning to her was what kept him going, kept him focused.

Besides, in many ways, this was an easier alternative to what he would otherwise be attending to if his name hadn't been drawn in the reaping. That is, it was easier, until he lost his one and only friend in that cruel jungle. Mags was gone before he could stop her.

Mags had become something like a mother to him after his parents were killed. She comforted him while he mourned, cooked him homey meals of shellfish, and even tidied up the house on occasion. He never thought he would need so much help as an adult, but now he wasn't sure what he would've done without her. She kept him on track, even when he was so low, felt so disgusting and worthless that he considered just ending it all, she brought him back. She told him he was good. She told him he was special. She told him that what was inside of him was at least ten times as appealing as the outside. He mourned for her that night just the same as he had for his mother and father.

It was during the Quarter Quell that he discovered he wasn't the only one. Johanna Mason, the snarky tribute from Seven, woke up late one night, trembling from the horrible memories that invaded her dreams. He was keeping watch, and she confided in him because she must have known he'd understand. She was sixteen also, given to the late Gamemaker Seneca Crane as reward for an especially successful Hunger Games. Seeing tears fall from her usually cold eyes as she recounted the horrors Crane had done to her, Finnick felt a new emotion stirring in him - empathy. It was a connection he'd never felt before. Not once had he even considered this happening to other tributes. He mentally added Johanna and any others who might be suffering the same fate to his list of causes to fight.

It was the birds that broke him. He thought he was afraid when he stepped off that pedestal ten years ago, and he thought he was terrified when Caesar Flickerman threw him onto the bed. He realized that he hadn't truly felt fear until he heard the shrill cry in the jungle that could only belong to Annie. She was screaming, she was in pain, she was dying, and Finnick couldn't get there fast enough. But, even worse was the cold dread that followed when he realized that the jabberjay must have picked up the scream from somewhere. Snow had finally caught up with him, and Annie was chosen to pay the price.

What happens after - the plan, it's success - means next to nothing. All of it's a blur of anxiety and dread. It feels as if a cold hand had grabbed hold of his heart and was gradually squeezing the life out of him with a slow ebb of fear and desperation. By the time it's all over and the hovercraft arrives, the pressure is almost unbearable. He begs them to take him back to his district, to know for sure if the jaberjays were a bluff or if he'd really lost her. There's nothing they can do but drag him along to their underground prison.

He wonders if it's Annie's world he's sunk into. Reality had taken a backseat to horrific daydreams, as he tried to pick apart the Capitol's strategy. Were they just holding her as bait, or breaking her for every scrap of information she knew? Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her face, mutilated and dripping crimson, pleading for him. Then it was as if the jabberjays were back, swarming around his brain, mocking him with her petrifying screams. This was Snow's game - no chance he'd get her back unscathed. No promise he'd get her back at all.

He wandered like a ghost through the pristine halls of District 13, searching desperately for something he couldn't find. The doctors told him to stay busy, to try to focus, and he kept trying to tell them that's exactly what he'd been doing - focusing on bringing her home.

He used that focus to avoid a total meltdown as he revealed his darkest secret on national television, before sharing those of the entire Capitol. Secrets he'd earned over three years of taking in as many clients as possible to hear all that Snow and the rest of Panem had to hide, for the sake of relaying them on to the rebellion. All of these secrets, except the ones that mattered: the answers to questions he was so desperate to figure out. Where was Annie, had the rescue team found her yet, was she hurt, and was she even still alive?

All those thoughts and fears vanished when he saw her. Clutching a sheet around her, dark hair caught in wild tangles, bags under her eyes that darted around frantically until they rested on him. Time stops, the world melts away, and suddenly he's holding her again, and they become the only two people in existence. She was safe. She was his. The Capitol would never touch either of them again.

The rest of that day was a blur. All he knew was that he never let go of her hand, through the drugs, the therapy, the hours of rest. She gripped back tightly, and as she was sliding in and out of consciousness in the hospital that night, a ghost of a smile passed over her lips as she murmured the words, "I love you."

He proposed a few days later. She had just been released from the hospital, and they snuck away from their schedule to take a walk aboveground, through the forests and meadows on the outskirts of Twelve. For a bomb site, the place was beautiful; although it could never compare to the the quiet shores where he grew up. The singing birds were not the dull, melodic roar of crashing waves, but it was just as perfect as he always imagined. He dropped down on one knee, pulled out the oyster shell where he kept the ring, and before he could even get out the words he had so carefully rehearsed, she let out a laugh of joy and flew at him with a hug that took them both toppling into a sea of wildflowers. "Yes! Yes, a million times yes!"

The ring was Mags', a simple gold band engraved with tiny shells. The gold in itself was a rare luxury, originally purchased in better times by Mags' grandmother, who passed it down through the generations - extravagant diamond rings were only found in the Capitol. The wedding bands had belonged to his parents, made from thick shells that had been meticulously worn down to size. The rings were some of their only connections to home, and were treasured dearly for it.

He was practically floating by wedding day. Beetee helped him with his tie, glasses glinting as he smiled, congratulating Finnick on making it so far. Annie took his breath away as they met at the altar - her dress was beautiful, but all he could see were her eyes. For the first time in years, they were clear as the crystal ocean back home, and shining brighter than the stars as she beamed up at him. "We did it," she whispered.

Heart fluttering in his chest, Finnick sealed his lifelong dream with the very first kiss he'd ever had that meant more than artificial lust and bargained secrets. It was the start of a life he gave up on entirely when the train door slid closed on his home in District 4. His future became simplified again. Him and Annie. Him and Annie, plus one, plus another, and another... A family. It was all he ever wanted.

Through the rest of the festivities, with music and dancing and a great seafood dinner Plutarch had somehow smuggled from Four, it wasn't until they arrived at their new compartment that Finnick realized he had a problem. Something he'd done hundreds of times before, with so many, and yet he stood there, staring at the bed he and his wife was to share, completely at a loss.

Annie deserved so much more than what he gave all the rest. How could he offer her something he'd already handed out to complete strangers? People not even worth mentioning, and yet apparently worth the very most he could give. Suddenly, he felt more dirty, more like the wasted prostitute he was than ever before, like every moment spent with his clients had been a direct betrayal of the woman standing next to him. Annie was so pure. How could he taint her like this?

His hesitation didn't go unnoticed. "It's okay," she said softly, clasping his hand tighter. "We don't have to."

He shook his head, looking away in an attempt to hide the shame written plainly across his face. "I'm not good enough for you, Annie," he said. "It would be wrong for me to make you settle for something everyone else on the planet had first."

She thought about this for a moment, and then she said, "Do you remember when all the kids on the docks put on that little play for everyone back home?"

"Yes," he answered, not entirely sure if she was going off on one of her daydreams or not.

"You were the bad guy. In the last scene, you stabbed one of the characters and he fell. But he always got back up when the show was over. You didn't really kill him, it was just pretend. Killing someone in a play doesn't make you a murderer, just like pretending to be their lover doesn't make it real."

"But I am a murderer, Annie," he said dully. "I've killed before."

"For their entertainment. It was their game, Finn, not yours. That desperate fourteen-year-old boy I saw on TV wasn't you. The heartbreaker they portray every year isn't you either. They're just characters in Snow's sick play. This, the man that married me..." She reached up to brush the hair from his eyes, smiling softly. "This is you. This is all I want. I want real, I want the Finnick Odair that walked with me on the beach when everyone else turned away, that held my hand and pulled me back when I thought I was unreachable. I want the you I fell in love with."

"Real," he repeated, a smile playing on his lips, and he closed the gap between them. "I think I can do that."

That night, every single woman, man, and potential alien that had been audience to his role in Snow's play never once crossed his mind.

The following weeks are bliss. He never lets go of her hand, she never stops smiling. She blanks far less frequently now, using his clasped hand as an anchor to reality. She had made such an improvement that they pay a visit to Mrs. Everdeen in the hospital wing, to see if she would drop Annie's prescription. They thought it was the unnecessary pills that were making Annie sick in the mornings, but Mrs. Everdeen had another idea.

"Good news!" She informed them with a smile the next day, holding up the small test strip she'd given Annie on their last visit. Finnick only had time to make out the word "PREGNANT" before he was engulfed in Annie's arms as she jumped up and down. She wasn't just happy - she was radiant. He hugged her back tightly and thought, nothing could be better than this.

He left for the Capitol a few days later, promising to spend time thinking of baby names until he returned.

He realized he should have gone home when Katniss offered a way out. No questions asked, no hard feelings. But out there, far from Annie's reach, all he could see were the people in the Capitol that had ever made him feel worthless, that took all he had and then discarded him, like he wasn't even human. He wanted to see the light leave Caesar Flickerman's eyes. He wanted to watch as Katniss disposed of Snow. He wanted to witness the whole city topple to the ground.

Instead, he saw his own blood splatter over the tunnel wall as he tried desperately to hold onto the rungs of the ladder. He saw his life flash before his eyes as he was torn apart. The mast of a boat, a silver parachute, Mags laughing, a pink sky, Beetee's trident, Annie in her wedding dress, waves breaking over rocks.

Then it's over.

In some unfamiliar plane of consciousness, a memory materializes around him. He's a small boy, rolling softly with the tide as he sits in their family's small fishing boat, watching his father's strong arms moving rhythmically as he rows them out to the gathering that's anchored about a mile out to sea. In his hands is the small paper boat he made with help from his mother. He's sure grandma would have been proud of it.

He watches as they lower her body into the water, wrapped in a blue-green shroud that reminds Finnick of her eyes, as if she were there to look at him with that special smile of hers and sing him his favorite song about the fisherman and his wife. As his uncle speaks a reverent eulogy, the friends and family that had gathered there all light candles and place them carefully in their own paper boats, before releasing them one by one to the tide. Finnick is one of the last to drop his in, following it with his gaze until it drifts too far into the sun-streaked horizon for him to see it's faint glow. "Goodbye," he whispers.

There is another boat, anchored separately from the others. In it sits a woman he recognizes, with wild dark hair and eyes like the raging ocean, that spill drops of saltwater down her cheeks as she gazes out to the setting sun. Next to her is another little boy, and it's as if Finnick is looking at his reflection. Both of them hold boats identical to the one he made, and he wonders if they're here for Grandma.

As the two of them release their candlelit ships, he can hear the woman's voice as clearly as if they were sitting in the same boat. "You weren't there to help me decide," she says softly. "So I named him Finn."

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They cut your eyes wide open

And bore into your precious head

My reach don't go that far, dear

But please, oh please don't let them in

I sank into the sea

Wrapped in piano strings

Few words could open me

But you knew them all

Now I just sleep beneath your floor

My ghost just tries to keep you warm

I've seen the end, I've lost the war

And one day you'll join me here just like the rest

- Radical Face, "Wrapped In Piano Strings"

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**If you liked it, please review! :)**


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